In Which The Tallest Have a Happy Holiday (And Ruin Everyone Else's)
by Magenta Mauve
Summary: The Tallest go out exploring on Christmas Eve to see what sort of celebrations the earth has to offer. They probably shouldn't have been let out of the house. I wrote this as a Christmas present for my beta, and dear friend, KnockPlease, aka KnockAgainPlease. Hope you enjoy it!


Merry Christmas, KnockPlease! I hope you had a wonderful holiday!

* * *

Humans, he decided, had at least one thing going for them, in that they had not one, not two, but at least _three_ different holidays devoted almost entirely to the consumption of sugar.

Halloween, Easter, and this one, Christmas.

Dib had said something at some point about it not actually being about sugar.

Something about some guy who was born with magic or something, and everybody loved him, and then he grew up and they hated him so they killed him, but then he came back as a zombie or something. The zombie part was in spring, though (Confusing, as wasn't all the spooky stuff supposed to come with Halloween? That was in the fall, wasn't it? Humans made no sense) and right now they were celebrating the guy's birth, not his death.

And Dib had said that that wasn't even _remotely_ close, but by then they had stopped listening and were busy inhaling a new package of candy canes.

Purple was bored. Bored, bored, bored, _bored_. Had he mentioned that he was bored? Because he was bored.

Despite his announcement that he would prefer to be as far away from all of them as humanly possible, Dib certainly spent a lot of time around the base. Red would often find him lurking behind doorways, or wandering around with a pad and pencil in hand that he would quickly hide. There was something wrong with this kid. Well, besides the obvious.

Dib had smacked his head into a desk several times, so hard that both Tallest were worried that he might dislodge his eyeballs and they would have to put them back in, but Dib emerged from the battle with nothing worse than a steadily reddening forehead, and had said that if Purple was so bored, why didn't he get up and do something instead of just sitting on the couch and moaning that he was bored.

The nerve of that child! When they got their empire back, he was going straight to Feces 6 as a janitorial drone, a planet so covered in animal waste that it literally rolled down the hills in disgusting, sticky brown balls. In fact, there wasn't much on the planet at all besides the animals and their waste, the organisms living in an endless cycle of devouring other animals' feces (And their decaying, rotten bodies) and then excreting it back out. They had flipped a coin to determine who had to go to inspect it. Purple had lost and had thrown up just from being in orbit.

Purple had asked Dib what that 'something' might be, and Dib had had to think about it for a minute, and then had said, "Look, you're going to be on earth a while, right? Why not get to know more about it? For example, we have more holidays going on that just Christmas, you know."

Normally the Tallest would have laughed the suggestion off, but the promise of other sugary delights was too tempting to pass up.

So Red had said, "Alright, lay it on me," and Dib had replied that there was Kwanzaa (Er, he was pretty sure it was this time of year) and that he knew absolutely nothing about it, and the Winter Solstice, which apparently in ancient times had involved animal sacrifice, and Hanukkah, which had something to do with lighting things on fire.

That one had caught Purple's attention and her had asked for more details (Setting things on fire was _almost_ as good as blowing them up).

Dib said something about special foods, (Er, he thought so?) and had to look up a list of them on the tiny, hand-held computer he carried everywhere. Apparently the most common were lat-kees and soof-gan-ee-yah. Tallest Red had raised an antenna and asked what in the heck those things were.

Dib had had to look that up, too, and reported back that they were fried potato pancakes and some kind of jelly donut thing, respectively, and Purple had perked up and said that that sounded even _better_ , a holiday devoted to fried foods and jelly donuts and setting things on fire, and had suggested that they go there instead of sitting around the house, but Dib had looked at them strangely and said that he didn't think they let anyone in without a membership. When pressed about what said membership entailed, Dib had turned red (Apparently humans could change colour, but only occasionally, which made the whole thing pointless and stupid. Octopuses did it much better.) and said that he was pretty sure you had to "cut off some body part, or something", and both Tallest had decided, after much deliberation, that even jelly donuts weren't worth losing limbs over.

It was then that Gir burst through the door wearing a tiny red hat, and riding on a tiny sleigh that was pulled by a team of two dozen frightened and absolutely filthy pigs.

Zim had burst in too, hot on the robot's tail and screamed at him in a voice so high-pitched and grating that both Tallest were surprised that it was even within auditory range. Several of the pigs broke free, but instead of running out the open door they ran in circles, bumping into one another and eventually the entire thing broke out into an all-out in an twenty-four-pig wrestling match, knocking over furniture and muddying up everything in the room.

Dib had been forced to climb the lamppost to avoid getting caught up in the fray, swatting down at the several pigs that were firmly attached to the edge of that ridiculous coat the boy wore, chewing away.

And so Red and Purple had looked at each other, shrugged, and decided that maybe it would be best if they just went out exploring.

The night sky above flickered with an unnatural glow every so often. When pressed for an explanation, Dib had signed and said that Zim had done "a thing", so his father had had to build a giant energy field surrounding the earth to protect it from some rogue AI and- Say no more, say no more. No, really, say no more, we don't care.

Purple adjusted the wig atop his head. For some reason humans only had hair in a select few places, and the top of the scalp was one of them. They weren't even good at being mammals, poor creatures. Not that he pitied the fleshy beings, of course. His mental comment was more derisive than anything else. In fact, almost every thought Purple had ever had was derisive, unless of course it referred to either himself or Red.

For example, he had observed that at this time of year, most humans insisted on covering their houses with as many flashing lights as they could possibly get their sweaty little hands on. At first he had assumed that there was some sort of competition to do with the holiday, with each family doing their best to blind their opponents, but no, they just wanted their houses to look all glow-y. It was a cop-out, if you asked him. They should have just set their houses on fire. Or blown them up. Whatever, at least no one was going to question why he was wearing sunglasses at night during this time of year.

(Despite his absolute loathing of almost all things human, Purple liked the sunglasses. He thought they made him look cool. He was going to keep them when this was all over, Red's teasing notwithstanding. He was a Tallest, he reasoned, he could do whatever he wanted.)

After wandering for a bit, the two of them happened upon a large stone building, with cars parked around the corner. Red recognized in vaguely as a "church" a building where humans met to worship some magical man in the sky (Although judging from the pointy towers they insisted on putting on the tops of all of these buildings, he wondered if perhaps the humans weren't trying to worship the magic man so much as impale him). He had chocked it up to the superstitions of a primitive species, something that they would grow out of once their realized their planet wasn't flat, but to his absolute shock, it soon became apparent that humans already knew this. In fact, they had already developed _space_ _travel_. Primitive space travel, yes, they had barely gotten past their own one, tiny moon, but space travel nonetheless, and they _still_ thought the magic man was in the sky. Where did they think he was? Out in space? Somewhere up in the stratosphere? In orbit? On the moon? In the clouds (Red had chuckled a bit at the absolute ridiculousness of that last one)? It made no sense to him.

Still though, the doors of the building were open, humans were pouring in, and, if you sniffed and held your antenna in just the right way, even under the stupid wigs, you could smell food, and, judgmental as they were, neither Tallest was ever one to turn down food. Oh, they would judge it harshly, laugh at the culinary attempts of primitive societies, spit things out and shout, but when it came to food they would try just about anything once, on the very slim chance that maybe it was actually good.

They slipped in without causing too much commotion and followed the crowds into a plush hallway. Glancing down the steps to the basement, they could see a buffet table spread out, ready and waiting for hungry visitors.

About a quarter of the food appeared to be pig, they had learned to recognize the smell of it both alive, dead, and cooked, thanks to Gir's disturbing obsession and many piggy "friends" who often disappeared without a trace.

They moved with the crowds, and somehow none of them seemed to notice that their newest guests were technically floating and not walking. The members of the crowd swarmed over each other, hugging and laughing and doing all sorts of other things that were just disgusting when humans did them.

Both Tallest made an attempt to get the buffet, but were quickly swept up by the throng, led by a tall (Well, by human standards, anyway) man in black wearing a little white collar about his neck.

They were quickly informed (Rather harshly, Red thought. How rude!) that the buffet was for _after_ the service. Several of the human larva groaned upon hearing this declaration.

And so Red and Purple looked at each other, shrugged, and followed the humans into an enormous room full of hard, uncomfortable-looking wooden benches. Food was food, after all.

The benches turned out to be just as uncomfortable as they looked, and apparently they weren't the only ones who thought so, because again, several of the larva were complaining to their parental units, each of whom quickly shushed them.

After much chatting, the man in the collar stepped up to a podium at the front of the room and called for silence, which the humans gave him. Red had assumed that he was going to give them their orders, maybe tell them to invade another ridiculously pointy building, but no, instead he just started rambling. He went on and on and on, talking about love, and peace, and boring things, and alternately praising the man and the sky and the man who had come back from the dead, who was apparently somehow his son.

Surprisingly, never before this moment had Red thought to connect the magic man in the sky with the magic man born on earth whose birthday they were apparently celebrating, not from a lack of intelligence, but simply because he hadn't cared enough to think about it at all.

But it was so _boring_.

Nothing happened.

The tall collar-man rambled, then he read from a little book. Then he rambled some more, and read from the little book some more, and so on and so forth until the whole thing dragged out into eternity…

Occasionally everyone get up and sing (Horribly out of key. Humans were _terrible_ singers. Just _terrible_.), but then they would sit back down and listen to the man read from his strange little book and ramble, ramble, ramble away…

Occasionally the man in the collar would call for silent moments and all of the humans would indeed fall silent, clasp their hands together, and bow their heads. Red and Purple thought that perhaps they had simply suddenly become fascinated with their own feet because who knew how a human's mind worked, really? But no, they had their eyes closed. Stupid thing to do. An enemy could sneak up behind you so much more easily in that position.

It was in the middle of one of these silent moments, when Purple, having grown frustrated with trying to figure out how to clasp his hands together when he had only two fingers on each one, stood up, announced, "I'm bored!" in a voice that echoed off of the stone walls, and made for the exit. Red did the same, no buffet was worth this.

While most of the adult sat there in shocked silence, several children rose up with:

"I'm bored, too!"

"Woo-hoo! You tell em' creepy tall guy!"

"But mommy, _they_ got to leave!"

And despite the manic attempts of their parents to calm them down, a sea of children rose up from the pews, shrieking, screaming and leaping over each other.

"He's right, it _is_ boring!"

"Screw this, I wanna eat _now_!"

Formal clothes were torn, the fancy hats of the stuffy old ladies crushed beneath a tirade of insistent, tiny feet, decorations were ripped down, and bibles were thrown about like snowballs, as a tidal wave of children rushed from the pews down to the basement, where the entire thing soon broke out into an all-out food fight.

What an absolute _mess_. Church-goers lay flat their backs on the floor, eyes dazed and confused, dirt and mud was _everywhere_ from the rugs to the ceiling. Windows were broken, shattered glass lay over every conceivable surface and a few of the pews had somehow, inexplicably, been upended.

Looking down at the carnage with tired, tired, eyes, his robes ripped, face covered in muck and collar nowhere to be found, Reverend Macmillan, made the sudden and unshakable decision that this would be the year that he retired.

* * *

Author's Notes: Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Whatever-else-you-may-celebrate, everyone!

Sorry that this is a wee bit late, or if it has a few typos. It was a gift for my beta, so I didn't exactly have her to look over my grammar.

This story takes place in the same universe as the "In Which World's Collide" story, it just takes place a wee bit later in the fic than I have actually written yet.

I hope I didn't cause any offense with my, er, less than flattering descriptions of beloved holiday traditions, but I was trying to keep Red and Purple and character, and, well, they're jerks.

My family was never religious, so I don't know much about Christmas Eve services I'm afraid. I have no idea what denomination the church the Tallest went to is.

I am, however, half Jewish, so I know enough about Hanukkah to mostly get it right (Don't worry, the Tallest will be back to ruin Hanukkah, too!).

In case it wasn't obvious, Dib doesn't actually really know anything about Judaism. Or, any religion, to be honest. He's really only interested in the parts involving ghosts and demons and eldritch gods lying deep in the ocean somewhere.

I've got the headcanon that IRKENs have some traits from both insects and vertebrates, so while they do have tiny slits that function partially as noses and ears, they still also hear, smell, and feel vibrations through their antenna.

That's about it. Happy (Belated) Holidays, everyone!


End file.
